It All Starts with Strategy

Perhaps what I most wish I had done a year ago would have been to develop a clear strategy. If I’d had a better idea of how Substack worked, it would have helped. That’s the purpose of this Field Guide.

Substack is good at telling you how to do things, but not so good at telling you why to do them or how they might affect your future actions. So, I’m going to give you some homework and explain my strategy as an example of how I’ve come to this particular point.

First … like many of you most likely, I would love to make this like one of those little neighborhood libraries where people just come and take what they want. However, I can’t make that model pay bills or satisfy my desire to have people to share with and learn from.

My strategic intention is to create a friendly, supportive place for entrepreneurial writers, learn the inner workings of Substack, and offer a simple marketing model that can help anyone understand how all of the Substack elements and features fit into that model.

Here’s my strategy regarding free and paid offerings:

• Weekly Wednesday posts will always be free.

Offerings for paid subscribers (our angels) include:

• Field guides including best practice examples (after this first one which serves as an example)

• Membership in the Substack Explorers’ Club (more later)

• Zoom gatherings (more later)

• Special efforts made to promote Member Substacks.

Pricing is the rather typical $6 per month with two months free with annual subscription.

What is an entrepreneurial writer?

Somewhere along the line, people began to think of the arts as being too lofty to be tainted by business. We know that isn’t true; however, we sometimes act as if it should be true.

Entrepreneurial writers understand that marketing and creative arts can live together harmoniously and that a writer must sustain an adequate life style in order to continue as a writer/artist.

Entrepreneurial writers learn how to blend value creation for their readers with their own creative juices in a way that makes financial sense for both of them and is facilitated by the automated payment collection system offered by Substack.

Entrepreneurial writers understand the power of collaboration, consistency, courage, creativity, and whole host of other “c-words” that we will talk more about on this adventure.